Some Assembly Required
by shiroihalo
Summary: Just a normal day at the Cullen house. set sort of before the second book


Some Assembly Required

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of it's characters!

Carlisle had never been a very good handy man. He was excellent with people, and taking care of the human body, but when it came to tools and workshops, Carlisle had no clue.Needless to say, Carlisle was well aware of his deficiancy with a hammer and did his best to avoid furniture that involved "Some Assembly Required". However, Esme did not. And every time she came home with a new table or shelf that had that dreaded label on it, he could never find it in his heart to say no to her.

So now he was stuck on a perfectly beautiful Sunday morning, and on his only day off in quite awhile, trying to make heads or tails of the instructions for a coffee table. Right now though, it wasn't the coffee table instructions that really bothered him, it was the audience he had aquired over the last 15 minutes. Sighing, but not looking up from his reading, he said," Alice, Emmett, may I help you?"

"We're just here to watch,"Alice chirped, grinning.

"Yup!" boomed Emmett, grinning just as hugely as his "sister".

"And why is that?" Carlisle asked, finally looking at them.

"Cause this outta be fun! I saw the ending already, but I just wanna see how it comes about!" replied Alice, widening her grin.

Carlisle studied them carefully, before sighing once more and then returning to his work. Just when he thought he might have actually begun to understand the instructions for the table, he realized he'd forgotten to bring any tools into the living room to work with. "Oh," he said surprised y his own foolish mistake, then got up and began to walk to the garage. He paused when after a few steps he heard distinct footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Alice and Emmett following him. There was a long moment of Alice and Emmett smiling and staring at him as he regarded them with worried curiousity. "Um, Alice?" he asked after awhile.

"Yes, Carlisle?"

"What exactly did you see happen?"

"Sorry, that's a secret! No can do!!" she chimed, leaning closer to him, but not moving her legs.

There was another long pause before Carlisle gave in, tuning to get the tools. It started with the garage door. It wouldn't open. He tugged as much as he could without actually breaking the door, but it wouldn't budge. And then came the sound of splintering. Carlisle froze, but it was already too late. The door came crashing to the floor around him in a heap of wood chunks and chips. Carlisle pushed the now useless wood to the side, ignoring the endless hoots of laughter coming from behind him, and proceeded into the garage, his head hung slightly in defeat.

He crossed to the wall with all of the power tools and tried to decide if he trusted himself enough to use any of them. Deciding against it, he simply grabbed a hammer, a screwdriver, and a wrench and made his way back to the "door" of the garage, where his spectaters were waiting.

Once he was safely back in the living room and had made a note to himself to get the garage door fixed, he tried to get back to work. Or to at least get started. However, in the time it had taken to get the tools, he had already forgotten what he had read to get started, so he had to re-read it all again. As Carlisle was reading, Alice sighed leaning on Emmett.

"Carlisle is so helpless with these things," she muttered. "It's gonna take forever to get to the fun."

"Not if we help him along..." Emmett replied, smiling down at her.

Alice grinned back.

Half an hour later, Carlisle was still trying to figure out and understand all of the directions.

"So, if side N goes into side G, then where does... this go? Wait? What? It goes into... piece 4? But then where...?"

And the rest of the morning was filled with inquiries such as this. By the afternoon, Carlisle still hadn't even begun building yet. And hour or so ago, Alice and Emmett had left, so he was completely alone in his confusion.

"Hey, Carlisle!"

The older vampire turned around and saw Alice coming at him, and he barely had time to react before she collided with his chest, squeezing hard.

"Aren't you done with that table yet? Let's play something! C'mon! Please, please?" Alice said happily, and very quickly.

Before Carlisle could respond, he felt someone behind him, picking up the pieces of the would-be table. "Emmett! What are you doing?" Carlisle managed to say before his words were drowned by Alice's bombardment of questions.

"Carlislelet'sgooutsideanddosomethingyou'vebeendoingthisallday!Itmustbesoboring!AreyouboredcauseI'dbebored!Let'sdosomething!Whatwouldyouwanttodo?Iwanttogoshopping!Let'sgoshopping!Whatwouldyouwanttobuy?IknowwhatI'dwanttobuy!OneofthosenewpurseswesawinonwofthewindowswhenwewereshoppingwithEsme!Ilovedthosepurses!"

Alice finished with a huge smile pointed directly at Carlisle.

"Ah, uh, Alice... how do you think of so many things to say in such a short period of time?" he asked, a little dazed.

"It's a talent!" Alice chimed.

"I... would most certainly agree..."

"Well, bye!"

"Wait, what?" Carlisle reached out to stop her, but didn't quite make it before she'd disappeared to wherever Emmett probably was now. Carlisle sat there for a moment before it dawned on him that they had ditracted him to get to the table. "I don't know what they're up to, but I hope they don't break anything else..."

Alice and Emmett weren't...intending to break any thing. "

"So... how do you put this together?" asked Alice, examining a leg from the table.

"No idea. Looks hard though," said Emmett, reading the instructions upsidedown.

Alice groaned. "Now I can see why Carlisle was taking so long. He's so thorough, he would take all day to build something like this!"

"Well, how could build it then?"

Alice grinned up at her brother. "Let's give the pieces some texture."

Carlisle smelled smoke. That alone instantly worried him. Just what were they doing to that table? He continued to search for them with more urgency.

"Carisle? What are you doing?"

The voice startled Carlisle, which was not something he was used to anymore. "Ah! Edward! I thought you were spending the day with Bella?"

Edward smiled. "She remembered that she had other things to do, unfortunatly. So I am home early." Then Edward frowned. "Why are looking for Alice and Emmett?"

"They... Esme... and then they took..." Carlisle didn't know where to start then just gave up, letting his thoughts fill the mindreader in.

"They took the coffee table that you were supposed to be building for Esme?"

"Yes," Carlisle replied, wringing his hands. "And know I cannot find them. Do you think that you could?"

Edward nodded, and closed his eyes seeming to be thinking, but Carlisle knew that he was really trying to sort out the thoughts he heard to only hear Alice and Emmett. Then he opened his eyes. "They are in the kitchen," then he paused. "I don't really think you will like what they are doing."

Edward followed Carlisle as he rushed to the kitchen, the smell and sight of smoke rising thick in the air. "Alice? Emmett?" Carisle asked, stepping into the closed kitchen. The smoke alarm was going off. "Where are you? Edward, where are they?"

"Right in front of the oven, Carlisle," Edward said, nodding in the direction.

There was qite a bit of smoke and the alarm was not helping matters by yelling into his sensitive ears. "Alice! Emmett! What are you doing in here?!"

"Carlisle! We are helping you!" came the reply from somewhere in the smoke filled room.

"By doing what exactly?!" Carlisle carefully made his way towards the evening, finally reaching the oven. Edward stayed behind in the doorway, listening.

"Oh no! What have you done?!" came a yell from Carlisle.

"We helped you!" replied Alice, straining over the fire alarm. Her voice sounded hurt and accusing.

"Why did you think that burning the table would help me?! Get it out! GET IT OUT OF THE OVEN EMMETT!"

"Sure, sure," was Emmett's amused reply. Obviously Carlisle's rare bout of yelling was what was causing his so much amusement.

"What on earth were the two of you thinking?! You could have brought the house down! The fire department is going to come here!"

"We were only trying to help you. We figured if there wasn't a table, there wouldn't be a problem at all!" said Alice.

"ARRRRRRRG!"

After reassuring the fire department that it had only been an accident and a lapse of judement on two particular Cullens' part, Carlisle was able to face the two more frustrating things left on his list for the day. 1)punish Alice and Emmett(something he rarely did and never liked to do) and 2)face the wrath of Esme for the detruction of her would-have-been new coffee table. He sighed and turned to the two vampires behind him.

"You realize, of course, that even though it is never used, setting fire to the kitchen is inexcusable and cannot go unpunished, correct?"

Both of them muttered their yes. "Good, you are both grounded for a-"

"Month, I know Carlisle..." Alice said glumly. "Man..."

Emmett looked exasperated. "A month? Really?"

"Yes. And that's final," he added before Emmett could try to argue any further.

Both vanished up the stairs then, grumbling. Carlisle sighed again.

Edward chuckled. "Adventurous family, hm, Carlisle?"

Carlisle looked at Edward. "Yes..."

"I am going to Bella's now. It's almost eight, she'll be wondering where I am soon."

"Yes, go. We wouldn't want to worry her," Carlisle said, not fully paying attention. Edward could tell he was worried about telling Esme about the destroyed coffee table.

"At least they didn't ruin any already put together furniture."

Carlisle turned fully to him then, and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. Edward laughed. "You know you wouldn't trade them for anything,Carlisle. This whole family can be put under the label of 'Some Assembly Required.'"

Carlisle laughed too. "Yes, I suppose you're right."


End file.
